Volpe Transportation Center Development | Kendall Sq | Cambridge

If I had to guess I'd bet that Boston will be more willing to give out tax breaks to Amazon then Cambridge. We'll see though.
 
Isn't any talk of Amazon @ Volpe a non-sarter with MIT already redeveloping the site?

Sure Amazon could be a tenant of a mixed use build out if they were only looking for ~100k SF, but Amazon wants 500ksf by 2019, expandable to 8msf over ~33 buildings. That ain't happening on Volpe.
 
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playing make believe for a moment; say Amazon isn't locating to NYC.... it's Boston (obviously). With the distance between DTB and Northpoint being only a few thousand feet, are 2 campuses a possibility?
 
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bobthebuilder said:
Isn't any talk of Amazon @ Volpe a non-sarter with MIT already redeveloping the site?
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MIT didn't buy Volpe to be Amazon's landlord, or to sell the land to Amazon. Why is that predicate so hard for some people to grasp?

Similarly, Harvard and Beacon Yards. Harvard didn't spend tens of millions acquiring often highly contaminated land in Allston to now turn it over to JB, who is not even a Harvard graduate. (He graduated from Princeton.)
 
It does say in the RFP that multiple campuses are possible, I just think they'll have options across the country for a single campus, which would be preferable.

odurandina said:
playing make believe for a moment; say Amazon isn't locating to NYC.... it's Boston (obviously). With the distance between DTB and Northpoint being only a few thousand feet, are 2 campuses a possibility?
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I agree about Volpe (too small) but not about Harvard and Beacon. That seems to be a great location, with most of the soil contamination cleaned up (yes?). I guess Bezos could be anti-Harvard/MIT but consider the location, between THREE universities, next to the Mass Pike, its own commuter rail stop (on the way) and .. a water shuttle going up and down the Charles River, even?

Harry Mattison, an Allstonian who some would consider a NIMBY, wrote on Twitter yesterday about the appeal of Beacon Yards, meaning it wouldn't be an automatic "No". (I think Allston knows what could be coming and would prefer an Amazon instead of a bunch of smaller projects.)

stellarfun said:
MIT didn't buy Volpe to be Amazon's landlord, or to sell the land to Amazon. Why is that predicate so hard for some people to grasp?

Similarly, Harvard and Beacon Yards. Harvard didn't spend tens of millions acquiring often highly contaminated land in Allston to now turn it over to JB, who is not even a Harvard graduate. (He graduated from Princeton.)
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Mostly this has moved over to the Amazon HQ2 thread... but as for Volpe specific.

Clearly Volpe is capable of providing the core of the Amazon HQ2 campus for phases 1 and 2 of the HQ2 RFP and MIT has been pretty clear that this is going to be in large part commercial space, so leasing some of that "1.7 million square feet of office and R&D space across eight new buildings" to Amazon could be part of that since Amazon's phase 1 is just half a million square feet of initial space.

Look at Amazon's HQ1 in seattle, just three hi-rise buildings make up the core of the headquarters with additional square footage being spread out from their in the area but not part of a single campus. The question is really if Amazon sees the potential in the area for additional square footage beyond the initial phases and if MIT wants one big tenant like Amazon or multiple smaller ones.
 
More community benefits for MIT's Volpe Center plan (with more details coming this afternoon), per Cambridge Day:
Along with the known 1,400 units of housing and 2.5 acres of open space that will appear in Kendall Square over Volpe’s 14 acres, with government research being done in a much smaller footprint alongside it, there would be several other big-ticket items, said Israel Ruiz, executive vice president and treasurer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Included in the packet are long-awaited access rights allowing the creation of a Grand Junction multi-use path, along with $8.5 million for design and construction.

The institute’s development arm committed also to spending $25.5 million on a Volpe community center, $8.5 million for transit improvements to ease the traffic expected from the creation of a neighborhood and $1.5 million to support a job connector program aimed at letting all residents take advantage of the square’s innovation economy.
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There should really be an observation deck here. The webcam on 88 Ames Street convinced me that this would be the absolute best view in the city.

Seriously, look at the city view across the top. Wow! This would be higher too, completely unobstructed in every direction.
https://app.oxblue.com/open/BostonProperties/BostonRegion

It not at the top of a building, maybe MIT should consider a hi-tech observation tower, like Cambridge's version of the Space Needle. Kendall could really use the flair.
 
DZH22 said:
There should really be an observation deck here. The webcam on 88 Ames Street convinced me that this would be the absolute best view in the city.

Seriously, look at the city view across the top. Wow! This would be higher too, completely unobstructed in every direction.
https://app.oxblue.com/open/BostonProperties/BostonRegion

It not at the top of a building, maybe MIT should consider a hi-tech observation tower, like Cambridge's version of the Space Needle. Kendall could really use the flair.
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+1

It would be great to see a really nice tall building here with a somewhat public accessible level at the top. Awesome views and a fairly good chance it would remain the tallest building in Cambridge (or at least Kendall) for the foreseeable future.


Also, how many pieces of flair?
 
Aerial view w/ massing models from MIT's press release:

A few specifics (it looks like a new Cambridge tallest...APPROVED at 500'...will be part of this):
-Approximately 1.7 million square feet of commercial development
-Approximately 1,400 housing units, ...including 280 permanently subsidized affordable units and 20 middle-income units
-A minimum of 5 percent innovation space for entrepreneurship and incubator activities
-Approximately 2.5 acres of open space
-Height limits ranging from 170 feet to 500 feet (one residential building is slated for a potential 500-foot height)
-Retail and active street uses in a minimum of 65 percent of ground floors...
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MIT-Volpe-Petition-4.jpg
 
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MIT-Volpe-Petition-4.jpg


The faux canal/reflecting pool is an interesting solution to that problem. Glad to see the park in the right place.

Also cool to include not only MIT's own SOMA projects, but BXP's as well.
 
Wow, lots of great stuff included in this render. The 2 towers on the right are MXD. The Ames Street tower is in there too. Plus all the Main Street additions.

This is simply spectacular. I just wish the open space were more contiguous. I fear this could come out as a bunch of unusable "lawns" instead of a real park or 2. The number of trees depicted is ... aspirational at best.
 
fattony said:
Wow, lots of great stuff included in this render. The 2 towers on the right are MXD. The Ames Street tower is in there too. Plus all the Main Street additions.

This is simply spectacular. I just wish the open space were more contiguous. I fear this could come out as a bunch of unusable "lawns" instead of a real park or 2. The number of trees depicted is ... aspirational at best.
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I think a lot of the green space in front of the buildings is really green roof. At least... I hope it is.

On the subject of green space, it would be nice for the Grand Junction path project to include some corporate-funded renovations of the lawn at Binney and Fulkerson. That will be a gateway in the future with the cinema right there, and it would have a ton of potential if done right.
 
Equilibria said:
I think a lot of the green space in front of the buildings is really green roof. At least... I hope it is.
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You can see in this south facing view that at least one of the green areas that appears to be a park in the aerial is in fact a green roof. If you look closely, that seems to be the case for the tallest tower as well.

MIT-Volpe-Petition-2.jpg
 
Equilibria said:
Bigger:

MIT-Volpe-Petition-4.jpg
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Agree that the faux canal extension/reflecting pools are great. This really ties this whole area into the Broad Canal way stretch. And in the other direction, the central greenspace aligns with the back entrance to the marriott - which is actually advertised as a pedestrian throughway between Main & broadway (and sees heavy traffic as such).

I don't mind the amount of greenspace overall and don't lament the green roofs vs. ground level parks - so much of the current Volpe parcel is fenced off, or surface lots currently; the ground level in these plans will be wayy more engaging. Kendall needs to be dense, and already has the "roof garden" thing going on elsewhere. I think it fits well.

theSil said:
You can see in this south facing view that at least one of the green areas that appears to be a park in the aerial is in fact a green roof. If you look closely, that seems to be the case for the tallest tower as well.

MIT-Volpe-Petition-2.jpg
Click to expand...
 
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